Background to

Early Modern Philosophy

Philosophy 22
Fall, 2009
G. J. Mattey
 Modern Philosophy

The “modern” period in Western philosophy
began in the seventeenth century

In its primary sense, “modern” philosophy is
contrasted with ancient and medieval
philosophy

Much of present-day philosophy can still be
classified as “modern” (though some call it
“post-modern”)

The first two centuries of modern philosophy
are often called the “early modern” period
 Medieval Philosophy

The philosophy of the Middle Ages was
dominated by Roman Catholicism

There was some Arabic influence

Much of the philosophy of the period was
done at Catholic universities and was
concerned with classic problems

This mode of philosophy was called
“scholastic” and its late versions were a main
target of modern philosophy
 Theological Philosophy

The primary topic in medieval philosophy
was the relation between God and man
− How does the human mind comprehend God’s
nature and existence?
− What is the purpose of the world and the events
that take place within it?
− Is human freedom compatible with divine
foreknowledge?
− How are nature in general, and human nature in
particular, to be understood as the creations of
God?
 Settling Disputes

The scholastic philosophers backed their
disputations by appeal to:
− Scriptural authority
− Official doctrines of the Catholic Church,
especially the reports of Church councils
− The doctrines of Aristotle (after the mid-thirteenth
century)
− Human reason (the “light of nature,” as opposed
to the “light of faith”)
− Sensory experience
 Natural Philosophy

Late scholastic natural philosophy was based
on Aquinas’s adaptation of the natural
philosophy of Aristotle

Aristotle conceived all of nature on the model
of the biological organism

The primary mode of explanation of natural
phenomena was teleological and qualitative

Few investigations in natural philosophy
were carried out quantitatively
 The Renaissance

The Renaissance (14th through 16th
centuries) was the period of transition from
medieval to modern philosophy

There was renewed study of the works of
ancient philosophers besides Aristotle

Platonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and
skepticism were alternatives to the prevailing
Aristotelianism

Natural philosophy was invigorated
 The Protestant Reformation

Martin Luther (1483-1546) sparked a revolt
against the Catholic Church when he posted
his 95 theses on a church door (1517)
− Luther preached that individual conscience
trumps the authority of the Church
− Redemption cannot be gained by “good works”

Jean Calvin (1509-1564) was a force behind
political revolution
− Calvin claimed that salvation or damnation are
predestined
 The “Copernican Revolution”

The dominant astronomical theory in the
Middle Ages was the geocentric theory of
Claudius Ptolemy (circa 85-165)

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
published a new heliocentric theory

He claimed its superiority both in theoretical
simplicity and in practical accuracy

The Catholic Church censored the book and
removed references to the reality of the
motion of the earth
 Galileo

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was a vocal
advocate of the Copernican theory who was
censored for arguing that the earth moves

He ridiculed the reliance of the Catholic
Church on the teachings of Aristotle

He built a telescope and discovered sun-
spots, the phases of Venus, the rings of
Saturn, and the moons of Jupiter

He introduced precise quantitative methods
into physics
 The Skeptical Crisis

The Reformation had raised the question of
the ultimate authority for religious belief
− Individual conscience?
− The Roman Catholic Church?

There seemed to be no higher authority able
to resolve this dispute without engendering
an infinite regress or begging the question

The same problem arises in disputes
between science and religion, as well as
among philosophers
 Fideism

Some thinkers tried to turn the skeptical
problem into an argument for religious faith

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) argued
that the infirmity of reason and the senses
leaves us no option but to submit to authority,
both secular and religious

The threat to reason posed by skepticism
and fideism was a major problem faced by
defenders of the new science of Copernicus,
Kepler, and Galileo
 The Philosophers

We will read from the works of the following:
− René Descartes (1596-1650)
− Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
− Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
− John Locke (1632-1704)
− George Berkeley (1685-1753)
− David Hume (1711-1776)
− Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
 Other 17th Century Philosophers

Noteworthy philosophers of the seventeenth
century
− Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
− Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
− Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655)
− Antoine Arnauld (1612-1694)
− Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
− Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
− Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715)
− Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
− Pierre Bayle (1647-1706)
 Other 18th Century Philosophers

Noteworthy philosophers of the eighteenth
century
− Joseph Butler (1692-1752)
− Christian Wolff (1679-1754)
− François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778)
− Francis Hutcheson (1697-1746)
− Thomas Reid (1710-1796)
− Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
− Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
− Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)